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Let’s Get Sh!tfaced, Part Deux Deux
There’s no gentle way to say this–I can smell the difference between my son and daughter’s fecal matter.
I could describe their distinct aromas for you in gag-reflex-inducing detail, but have chosen not to in case you are currently eating, or plan to ever again. (After all, you should never bite the hand that reads you.)
Not sure how many of you know this, but I am a world class dishwasher. This is not due to any concerted effort on my part–I’ve just wound up logging my 10,000 hours since the Twins’ birth, conquering mountains of soiled bottles, Sippy Cups, and high-chair trays on a tri-daily basis.
Every once in a while, I try to fish some of those hours out of here. This one time, I came really close.
Thus, on the morning of the Twincident in question, I had stealthily ducked into the kitchen to knock out the breakfast dishes. Despite both having nasty colds and ear infections, the Twins were in excellent spirits having just been fed, and babbled baby limericks at each other while surveying the playroom toyscape. Since the Twins made their outside-of-Mommy debut, we rarely have more than two minutes to eat human-style at a proper table anyway, so we chose to convert our house’s “dining room” to a playroom, which has worked swimmingly at moments like this, when I can watch them in the next room while still actively pursuing 20,000 hours.
Having successfully sanitized the load’s umpteenth and umptieth items, I Deion-Sanders-High-Stepped from the sink to the playroom threshold.
And that’s when it hit me.
The Wall of Stank.
Overheard in a Suburban Phoenix Neighborhood
Really, Baby Girl?
Are you really done with the stroller?
Because we’re six blocks from home. Are you really going to make me carry you six blocks?
You do realize there’s a reason we bring the stroller, right? See those things down there? What shape are they?
That’s right–they’re circles. See, the circles are wheels, and they make it so Daddy doesn’t have to carry you and your brother while we walk around the neighborhood because if Daddy had to do that, Daddy would probably throw out his back.
In fact, Daddy’s feeling his back right now. Do you see what Daddy’s carrying you with?
That’s right! That’s an arm. Good job, Baby Girl! How many arms is Daddy using to carry you? Let’s count them. Ready?
One…
That’s right. Daddy’s only using one arm. Where is Daddy’s other arm? Do you see Daddy’s other arm? Where is Daddy’s other arm?
THERE’S Daddy’s other arm! Daddy’s other arm is pushing the stroller because your brother is still in the stroller. Do you see how good your brother is being? See that? He’s even drinking his juice.
‘atta boy, buddy.
Be Careful What You Wish Fo’
My wife and I had narrowly escaped the house with the Twins intact. We’d fed and bathed them in a hurry so we could make it on time to Thanksgiving 2: This Time, It’s Leftovers at my wife’s mother’s house, and were now en route, listening to the soothing sounds of choral squawks from the back seat over the jingle-jangle of Arizona’s perpetual Christmas music radio station.
Glancing downward at her leg, my wife felt her jeans. “My knee’s still wet from when I pulled him out of the tub and dried him,” she chuckled.
“Yeah, well, that’s better than finding poo smears on your sleeve.” I’d had to change my shirt after changing Twin diaper loads.
“Can you imagine how awesome it’s going to be when the kids can walk and we can just tell them to step out of the tub themselves?”
“Yeah, that’ll be nice.” I mused. “But that also means they’ll be able to step out of the tub whenever they want.”
“…Nuh-uh. We’ll hold them down or something.” But even she herself didn’t sound convinced.
I eyed her with a grin. “Mo’ money, mo’ problems, babe.”
I do love it when the Twins call me “Big Poppa.”
Coyote Fugly: Part 1 – Your Friendly Neighborhood Predator
I was already mourning the morning walk.
Before we’d even traveled a block my dog had decided to lead the caravan, walking directly in front of the jogging stroller, her hindquarters mere inches from the front wheel. I don’t know why she insists upon this walking arrangement–maybe she likes to think she’s in charge–but(t) it never “ends” well for her, typically culminating in me literally running her ass over. It begins when she looks back at the stroller and decides she is terrified of it, so terrified that she freezes in place, causing the usually-taut leash to slack and wrap around the stroller’s back axle, putting us at a dead stop just after the tire bumps her square on the cheeks. I do my best to stop before the butt-bump, but she forces me to tailgate her at an unsafe following distance.
It would be a lot easier (and fun) if my dog could fly.
On this particular day, she had jumped to deer-in-headlights mode so abruptly and forcibly that it had pulled her harness clean off. (We attach the leash to her harness and not her collar because after years of scientific research, we have determined she would rather be choked to death than respond to leash tugs.) And because my dog just barely qualifies as obedient, I knew I had to act quickly on this leashless freedom unless I wanted to choose between:
1) chasing her around the neighborhood, loudly cussing her out while she thinks its a game, waking the Twins from their stroller catnaps and yielding a sterophonic meltdown; or
2) tritely employing the if-you-love-her-set-her-free-and-if-she-never-returns-she-was-never-yours axiom, which would most likely mean never seeing my beloved canine again, as she would surely make a grand exit from this life in Harry Houdini fashion while performing her famous freezing-in-front-of-an-oncoming vehicle trick.
It was in that moment that I remembered I am a ninja, as my keen, subconscious reflexes sprang into action, one-handedly snagging her by the tail, keeping the other hand firmly planted on the stroller.
She turned her head towards me, dumbly panting with glee, as if to say. “That was fun, Dad!”
The Zen of Being Annoyed
If you can picture an almost-thirtysomething, unkempt, elongated-stubble-sporting man…
• one-handedly maneuvering a double-jogging stroller (carrying boy-and-girl twins wearing boy-and-girl versions of the same hoodie) around garbage cans and parked cars;
• keeping a leash (attached to an ecstatic, wayward canine for whom the current situation is like a trip to Disneyland) wrapped around the wrist of that same stroller-driving first hand;
• attempting to navigate email, Facebook, and Twitter on a cell phone with the second hand;
• bending over every few steps to to sip coffee through a straw because the stroller cup-holder’s well-meaning death-grip prohibits one-handed removal; and
• periodically wiping said coffee leaking from a “spill-proof” travel mug off the stroller handle;
…you have a pretty accurate picture of what my morning walk is like.
Sounds annoying, right? Well, guess what? I love it.
That’s just how I stroll.
